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“There were times when we were really close and there were times when we hated each other.

“Around about the age of 18, the rest of my friends were all into drinking, drugs and that sort of thing.

“Then when my older brother passed away I went right downhill. Very bad. I was down-and-out.

“There were times when I was being found asleep on park benches. You wouldn’t believe it.

“I tried to drown out my emotions with drugs and alcohol and, at the time, it worked.

“It was heartbreaking. He was only a kid.”

He added: “I reached a point in my life where it was make or break and luckily I decided to choose the right path.

“I got to a stage where I thought that enough was enough. I was in a bad way but I managed to turn it around.”

He puts it mildly.

Welsh world champion Lee Selby (Image: Andrew James)

Fast forward a decade and Selby is IBF featherweight world champion, though the passing of his brother – whose nickname ‘Slinky’ can be found on Selby’s trunks on fight night and tattooed on his arm – still lingers.

“I’m 30 now, but it’s hard to look back and imagine him being younger than me because he was only a kid then and I’m now a fully-grown man.

“He’ll always be like my older brother. I wonder, in another 10 or 20 years time, whether or not he’ll still feel like my older brother or will I see him as a kid?

“I don’t know, it’s strange.”

When asked if he was destined to become a boxer, Selby gives a nod of agreement.

His father is a boxing fanatic and Selby speculates that the sport was always on the television growing up because Lee Snr. was desperate for his sons to take an interest.

Boxing gloves were waiting under the tree on Christmas Day and the living room would become the ring as the brothers ‘hit lumps out of each other’ with dad refereeing proceedings.

The boys would run to school with their father cycling alongside and then run home before going straight to the boxing gym as soon as they were old enough.

Selby has never moved away from his hometown of Barry (Image: Andrew James)

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His mother, Frankie, was also part of the team, driving her boys up to Rhoose Amateur Boxing club and waiting outside as they were put through their paces.

Given that he’s currently Wales’ only world champion – though his brother Andrew is now a mandatory for the WBC flyweight title – it would be easy to assume that Lee was the most talented of the three but that wasn’t the case.

“As kids, me and Andrew were competitive. When we were closer in weights, the sparring would get competitive. He was very good as a schoolboy and as a youth and he used to beat me up until I started growing.

“I shot up a little bit and when that happened I was bigger and stronger, and I fought back.

“Now he’s turned professional and we’re training in the same gym, which is nice.

“When we’re sparring, because I’ve done it with him for so long, I know him inside out. I know how to pressure him and how to tire him out - he can’t get away with anything when he’s in with me.”

Family has always been important to Selby and he cherishes that sense of belonging. He’s never moved away from Barry and during this interview he’s stopped multiple times as passers-by say hello. These are his people.

Lee Selby and his daughters (Image: leeselby126 on Instagram)

And now he has a growing family of his own. Selby has two children with his partner Meggie, Lucia-Lee is three and Minnie will turn two next month.

He admits that his outlook on boxing has changed now that he has people depending on him.

“Before I had kids I would have been more than happy to die in the ring as opposed to lose,” he said.

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“We’ve got seven chickens, five ferrets, five dogs, 11 puppies, two cats and I’ve got another two dogs coming,” he explains.

“I’ve always had animals since I was a kid. All sorts of different pets.

“I used to go through phases when I had snakes, lizards, my dad would have parrots, we’d always have dogs.

“I’m into hunting and field sports, so I’d always have the ferrets, lurchers, hunting dogs and terriers.”

Inside the ring, there was more hunting to be done.

Heading into 2017, Selby was in a good place after defending his IBF title twice. He was looking forward to a big year.

But things kicked off on a sour note when his chance to realise a boyhood dream of fighting in Las Vegas was snatched away from him at the eleventh hour as Jonathan Victor Barros failed a medical ahead of the weigh-in.

Given the Welshman’s unassuming demeanour – his ‘Welsh Mayweather’ nickname is one he describes as a nice tag to have ‘but the wrong one’ – it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he preferred to steer clear of boxing environments such as Vegas.

But it remains a burning ambition of his, despite his loathing of much of the baggage that comes with professional boxing these days.

“It’s not an environment that I would be comfortable in outside of boxing,” he admitted.

“But when I step into the ring, that’s my home - the big crowds, the big lights, the high-profile fights.

“I grew up watching all the great on the TV and there wasn’t any trash-talking. I mean, you’ve got the exception with Muhammad Ali but he did it with class.

“If you’re a good fighter, people will pay to watch you. Back then, the best would fight the best, whereas now you have promoters taking fighters that are not good enough and making them big names just because they’re marketable.”

When asked if he felt he gets the recognition that he deserves, he pondered: “At times I do and at times I don’t.

“I’ve beaten some good fighters and I’ve boxed brilliantly but because I’ve made the good fighters look average, I don’t get the credit I deserve, people just make out that the opponent wasn’t very good.

“But then when I have a fight like my last one, when I didn’t perform so well against a lesser-known opponent, and I get slated.”

Big name or not, marketable or not, whether he got enough credit or not - all that would pale into insignificance when, on the Tuesday before the rematch with Barros in July, Selby’s mother suddenly died.

“My trainer and manager were knocking my door and asked if I’d heard the news and then they said they would respect my decision if I wanted to pull out.

“I told them ‘no, I’m fighting, don’t mention it again’.

“I tried to just blank it out but then at the weigh-in and on the way to the venue, you had all the fans offering their condolences, which made things a lot harder.

“I just had to try and remain professional.”

Respected boxing writer Steve Bunce wrote that Selby ‘boxed like a dream’ that night as he finally defended his title at the Wembley Arena before heading back to Barry to grieve with his family.

But more bad news was to follow a week later when Selby’s grandfather, Peter, passed away.

“It was slightly different with my grandad. He was ill for a few years with Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, he was slowly dying and when he was sent to hospital we knew he was going to pass away within a month.

“It was almost expected but it was still incredibly difficult.”

Since then, Selby’s only other fight, against Eduardo Ramirez, was also preceded by controversy when the Mexican missed his car to the press conference, leading to speculation he’d gone AWOL.